


blood on the floor (and you cried 'til the morning)

by jeanjosten



Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: Apathy, Depression, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Enemies to Lovers, Fox!Jean, Isolation, Jean is heavily depressed and Neil tries to help, M/M, Psychological Trauma, Recovery, References to Depression, Soft and sad, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, ÉDIT: NEW TUMBLR IS WNDG
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-02
Updated: 2018-08-12
Packaged: 2019-05-01 02:11:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 13,929
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14510235
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jeanjosten/pseuds/jeanjosten
Summary: Jean accepts Neil and Renee’s offer to join the Fox line after Riko’s death. At first it seems like a good idea despite his conflict with Kevin, but then Jean shuts down and doesn’t let anybody in. Except for Neil.With the understanding they have since Neil’s stay at the Nest, they make a silent deal to go through this together. Neil makes it his goal to bring Jean back, hoping perhaps the dislikable boy he once knew is still there somewhere.





	1. i made it up from the bruise on the floor of this prison

**Author's Note:**

> ya girl got depressed as fuck in the middle of the night and it was either some terrible coping mechanism or some depressed Jean. you choose.
> 
> not corrected, not edited, written in one go and posted on impulse. former title from [olafur arnalds](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rUL04sHIVhI), new one from [iron & wine](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Kh09MuIfIU).

There were people who healed from their wounds, and then those who were hurt too often to heal at all. Jean Moreau was the latter, and, that, he didn’t really know until he earned the opportunity to close his eyes long enough to breathe.

It hadn’t been easy. Convincing Wymack, at first, though it ended in reminiscent speeches and Neil’s violent gesture, reeking sincerity to its core. The boy chose his fights, he knew, and Jean was one of them.

Then Kevin, and this, it had never quite ended. It was an ongoing struggle, an effort to make every passing day a little more, but Renee called it forgiveness and Neil called it alliance.

Of course he would. Of all the Foxes, Jean should have known, Neil was his closest acquaintance—and though not the warmest, there were things he didn’t need to say when Neil was close, things he could only have whispered to the rest. Renee felt Jean’s hurt deep in her guts, but what she had recovered from herself, she had left behind for good; those were things from her past she could only stir through far-off memories. Neil—Neil was like a wound that wouldn’t close, a fresh cut too deep to heal.

Neil was the remedy to everything, because Neil knew.

He knew too much and then, not enough, but in the end they’d share a glance and Jean would close his eyes, images of Neil bruised and battered and lying on the ground flashing behind his eyes. If he focused hard enough, he could almost remember how cold he had to shower him to speed up the healing process and avoid themselves more injuries.

Everything had been cold back then.

“Jean?”

Jean looks up, tightens his lips and then nods. Neil shuts the door behind and steps forward, just a little, just enough for it to be either respect or timidity. The choice was fast.

“What do you want?”

Silence. Always silence.

He’d always thought Evermore was something quiet and terrible, so deep underground no sound could ever escape; but Riko’s loud words were missing now, and all he had was void.

“Kevin asks why you aren’t at practice.”

He shouldn’t have been surprised.

The only scrimmage Jean had been to was the very first one, and it’d ended in fights Renee, Matt and Wymack had to interrupt with firm, unforgiving fists. The stern violence, Jean hadn’t minded. What he had liked less, however, were the disapproving frowns from the Foxes, and the wavering uncertainty flashing on Wymack’s face here and there. It was quick, almost imperceptible, but Jean had learned to analyze people’s expressions upon joining the Ravens.

An angry Raven’s violence, after all, was easier to withstand if he could brace himself for it first.

He’d seen them coming, all resigned to end it here, and Jean had kneeled on the floor to cup his own skull, knowing somehow what to prioritize. A passionate player would have gone for the knees, a frail one for the stomach, but Jean was a different sort of victim; he was a survivor, and those aimed for the very necessary.

His head. That was all he needed. Spine, bones, flesh—broken as they may have been, he didn’t care. He needed to stay alive by all means, even if it meant he’d never touch a racquet again. Kevin had been quick to bring cold words to the silent aftermath, but then Renee was kneeling in front of him, reaching out to grab his wrists and uncover his crumpled form—

But Neil had screamed “no!” and everyone had stilled mid-gesture.

Dan had looked ready to persist, but the moment after everyone was gone, and Neil was standing there, quiet and patient, staring at Jean as he shook on the ground. He didn’t know how long he stayed there, waiting for Jean to come back to him. He wasn’t even sure if Jean had come back at all.

Now he stares at Jean but Jean doesn’t stare back.

“You don’t have to just yet.” He felt like adding something soft, like perhaps: when you’re ready, or: you’re not alone. He didn’t because he knew how empty those words were, how unnecessary they sounded. They were not wanted, not even hoped for. They were simply reminders of what he had gone through, of how alone he really was at the end of the day.

Jean sat there without moving, on the edge of his dorm bed, still made, so neatly Neil wondered if he had ever slipped under the covers at all. One could have thought Jean was in shock, but he wasn’t.

He was breathing, or he thought he was. His shoulders were relaxed, his hands rested sloppily against his thighs, knees spread with the nonchalance of someone who stops trying. He wasn’t in shock. He was only… there. He was just there.

It was too painful to be more.

“It’s been a few days now,” Neil said. It wasn’t awkward with embarrassment, or quiet with shyness—but blunt with the facts nobody could deny. It wasn’t tainted with emotion or pity. In fact, he sounded like Kevin, and realizing so made him look away in confusion. “But you can still go back on your decision.”

Jean looked up from the ground but didn’t budge. He didn’t talk, either.

“We might not be for you.”

He meant it, somehow. The Foxes were a chaotic and troubled bunch, all still dealing with issues Jean couldn’t bear. Exposing him to the restless fights and the atmospheric bitterness was a danger, he knew, but he also knew he had never felt safer than with the Foxes. He hoped it could be the same for Jean.

Neil hoped safe was a word Jean could use someday, too. Learn the odd sound of it by twisting it on his tongue, repeating it until he got drunk on the comfort it brought to his ears. Whisper it to himself at night.

“If Kevin is part of the problem, we—” Neil started, but Jean cut him off before he could go on.

“Kevin isn’t a problem.”

That was a lie, he knew, but on the great scale of things, Kevin wasn’t much. He was nothing and no one to worry about—he was only resentment and bitterness, anger that lingered from his past and refused to heal. He wouldn’t let go and Kevin wouldn’t bend.

This wasn’t a problem, it was background noise, and Jean didn’t care.

People like Jean could spend their entire lives resenting people for the awful things they did. Torture, abandon—treason. What Kevin had done had a name. Then again, people like Jean, they never lived too long.

“Then what is?”

Jean thought about it, examining the bedroom floor as though trying to catch all the answers there. He didn’t find any.

He looked up. He didn’t say anything, but he didn’t need to—Neil heard it anyways.

 _Me_ , the broken thing said, glancing back down again.

Neil stood there for a moment, unsure what to do but refusing to leave prematurely. He wasn’t sure what Jean would do once he would. Chances were—nothing more than he already was doing.

It almost hurt to watch.

 

The second week, Neil asked Wymack to count him out of practice for a while. Wymack frowned and opened his mouth, ready to call every bit of this a bad idea, but Neil’s eyes were serious and unblinking, cold with the truth. An hour later he was shoving half his closet into his duffel bag and walking down the corridor to where Jean’s room was.

It was the last one—they had kept it devoid of junior years for obvious reasons—and when Neil entered, he found darkness. Darkness where the blinds were still shut at one in the afternoon on a sunny day, darkness where the little food Jean had bothered to consume was half-eaten on the counter, collecting dust and mold and misery. Darkness all over, in every corner, like Jean had brought Evermore along.

“Jean,” he said. It was quiet and soft, like he wasn’t sure Jean was sleeping.

There he found the boy, sitting on the ground against the bedroom door. The living room had no couch, no TV—no furniture and no poster. It was the home of a ghost, which Neil sometimes thought Jean was. At least, this of the loud and obnoxious boy he had learned to know at the Nest, months ago.

Sometimes he wondered if he even existed anymore.

But then there seemed to be nothing behind Jean’s eyes.

“Why the bag,” Jean forced out, and it was so slow and rough he knew those were the first thing he had said in a while.

Neil shrugged it off and it fell on the ground in a soft puff. “I’m moving in temporarily.”

Jean snorted in disbelief, mocking to the core, but it had nothing of what he had known before. It was meek and brief, half-hearted.

“I know you don’t need me,” he said before Jean could. Jean didn’t look like he’d say anything, but he felt like preventing the annoyance of it anyway.

He sat on the ground next to him, at arm’s reach to Jean’s comfort. But then, surprisingly, he caught Jean’s Adam’s apple bob up and down as he swallowed dry, and studied the shiny skin of his bare torso. He hadn’t showered in a while. A week, two perhaps, he couldn’t tell. The sweatpants were different, but the sharp smell of smell was hard to miss, and Jean’s dark hair was starting to go flat and greasy.

It was a pathetic sight, but he didn’t feel it necessary to tell him. Jean, after all, already knew.

“Where are you,” he asked. It was a simple question, rude yet gentle, and Jean turned his head to the side.

He met his eyes, briefly so, and Neil needed a minute to realize he was tearing up.

“What do you want?” Jean cleared his throat, and Neil recognized the first signs of a sob. He was holding back, he could tell, but he did a good job at it. This probably wasn’t something he had been allowed to do at Evermore, and old habits died hard.

“I want you back.”

Jean stared, empty. He rested his head against the wall in a loud thud and Neil watched, patient. For someone so eager to play and get into fights, it was strange—but it wasn’t disagreeable, not quite, watching Jean fight every passing second. He could have called it inspiring if it wasn’t so damn miserable.

The poetry was gone; there never had been any to begin with.

How could there, when Jean reeked transpiration and hurt? It wasn’t recovery. It was drowning.

He was drowning and he couldn’t breathe.

“You don’t know me,” Jean said.

“I do,” Neil pressed, because he did.

Maybe he didn’t know what Jean’s favorite color was, or what the skies looked like from his hometown. Maybe he didn’t know what his parents were like, maybe he didn’t even have any idea what Jean had been before all of this.

But he knew, with unshakeable certainty, what Jean was like now. He knew the disdainful curve of his smirk, the cold tint of his eyes. He knew the speed with which he spoke French, and the elegant care he took to pronounce every word when he wasn’t. The perfectionism. The search for conformity and norm and pride—within the lines, never out—oh, standing out could be a mistake you couldn’t come back from under Riko’s watch.

Now he was gone and Jean didn’t know what to do anymore. Who to be. Where the limits were. He didn’t know where to fit, where to stop—he had no hopes and dreams, nothing to hold onto. All he had ever had… had vanished when Riko had.

They had cut his ankles by leaving him alone and unguided, and now he couldn’t walk.

“I can leave,” Neil said.

“What’s the point.” It was a no, he knew, and he tried to find contentment in that certitude.

And so he stayed.

 

 

He didn’t go to practice the day after. It was eight in the morning when he decided he had to do something, feeling Jean’s body shake underneath his own bunk bed. It was soft and repressed, like he was trying not to bring any attention to it, but it was hard to ignore when the room was cold and silent.

Empty of life.

Jean wasn’t even strong enough to be angry.

“Jean,” he called, but of course nobody answered. He jumped out of his bed and approached his, standing against the edge and waiting for a sign. “Jean.”

His head slightly tilted, but fell back down against the pillow, and Neil stared as his body shook. He was feverish, perhaps, but Neil knew he was probably crying.

It took a moment to ponder—and then he was cautiously leaning down at his sides, wrapping firm arms around his body to grab his wrists and… squeezing.

Jean fought back for a minute or two, shaking and kicking and grunting in his ragged breaths. Eventually, though, he tired himself out and stilled, sobbing hard against the pillow like he refused to accept Neil’s help. There was nothing he could do against Neil’s warmth against his back, or the steadying feeling of his firm fingers around his arms, holding him there.

Nothing, at least, he cared enough to deny.

It did take a while but he leaned into the touch, bringing Neil’s arms closer to his chest and crying because—he knew he could. He was allowed to, now. He was quietly told to.

He had to let it go, somehow.

He had to fight for air.

“Breathe,” Neil whispered in his neck, and closed his eyes when Jean’s shoulders violently shook with the effort it took to obey. “Breathe, Jean. Please breathe.”

They lied there an eternity. Hours, the day perhaps, Neil couldn’t tell—how easy it was to lose track of time and reality in this pitch black fortress, shielded from everything and everyone to only let inner demons ask questions.

Neil waited until he was sure Jean had fallen asleep, until he could tell his breath had steadied and calmed down; but even when he did, he stayed there, holding onto the sound of Jean fighting his every breath and onto the cold and beaten body he had left behind.

He couldn’t possibly fix Jean, he knew. But he could remind him to breathe when Jean forgot to.

 

 

They grew the habit of sharing Jean’s tiny bed at night, or in the middle of the day, lingering underneath the sheets to share human warmth and reassure one another everything was bearable. It was not fine—but it was bearable, for a survivor like Jean, it was all that mattered for now.

Neither spoke much, and when they did, the other hardly answered at all. It was easier to sit in silence than to do anything else, and they cherished this rare calm like a treasure they had never been given. Neil realized he had never really done this: know someone through their gestures rather than their words, through the scattered rhythm of their breath rather than their voice. It was intimate and terrible, and sometimes, if he was lucky, he’d catch a glimpse of the boy he had known long ago.

 

 

It had been days when Jean finally left the dorm. It was the middle of the night, which had been Jean’s only condition—save for staying alone, which hadn’t really been a condition at all.

“You are supposed to run, you know this?” Neil asked when they walked down Perimeter Road. Jean had his fists down the front pocket of his sweatshirt, and they knew by heart the rhythm of their running shoes hitting the concrete by now.

Neil had asked him to go on a night run with him, but now they were walking in silence and nothing more, and eventually Neil found it pleasurable.

It had nothing of the numbing satisfaction of a run, nothing of the cold and stunning speed of it; but it was different, and he glanced at Jean from time to time, even just to make sure he was still there, in one piece, breathing and walking.

“We should do this at least once a day. Otherwise, you’ll lose the habit of walking. You’re already out of shape.”

Jean listened but didn’t intervene. It was like talking to a child who didn’t know the language, or a quiet animal, or perhaps a robot which didn’t know how to speak. A moment it was infuriating, the other it was agreeable.

When Jean spoke, it was never soft, and never serious. A harsh turnaround to avoid reality, Neil thought, but at least he still had a voice.

“You don’t have to wait for me,” Jean grunted.

“I’m not running if you’re not running.”

“I was talking about the rest,” Jean mocked, but his lips barely moved.

He was talking about Neil moving, about Neil skipping practice to catch up with Jean instead of the other players, Neil preferring to stay on the same wavelengths as his than going on with his own normal life. And now he was offering a broken sleeping pattern just to get Jean out of his room, and though it felt like too much, Jean couldn’t grasp why.

“I never do anything I don’t want to,” Neil shrugged.

“I know.” Neil glanced at him at the words, but Jean ignored him easily. This was one of those: the scarce and brief moments during which they mentioned Neil’s stay at Evermore without even bringing it up at all. It lingered in the air between them, heavy, a souvenir that never faded. Jean knew him—Neil knew him. They did, because that’s what they had been forced to do in order to survive. Patch each other back to health, or what seemed to be sufficient for the day; grab a hand or a shoulder or an arm to lift the other up when they fell down.

They had never talked about it, not really. Some days it felt like they were still there, but Jean refused to have it any other way. He’d rather relive Evermore’s hell in Neil’s presence than something strange and frightening with someone he didn’t want and didn’t know.

He wondered if that meant he wanted Neil.

“Let’s head back.”

Jean looked up, eyes asking ‘so soon’ but saying nothing. Then Jean went straight to bed, hardly even stripping on the way to it, and Neil stilled by his side, eyes staring at the bunk above—until Jean shyly and wordlessly reached for his hand and pulled it against him. Neil yielded and turned, wrapping his tiny self around him as he usually did, Jean accepting the shield because it was all he had. It was small and, sometimes, a little too clumsy, but it was better than being alone.

Neil asked nothing in return and that’s all that mattered in the end. Because, really, Jean had nothing to give.


	2. the blink of an eye when i breathed through your body

Neil knocked on the open door and waited. Wymack looked up, taken out of his papers and whatever distraction he had been focused on, nodding grimly for Neil to come in.

“If this is about practice, I’m going back today.”

“We need to talk about Jean Moreau.”

“Oh.” Neil’s hand dropped the handle and he stood there, looking like he already wanted to leave. This wasn’t a conversation he wanted to have, for so many reasons; some obvious, and others too intricate for him to even grasp.

“I don’t think he’s getting better.”

“He is.”

“How?”

Neil shrugged. “He just is. Give him time, that’s all he needs. He just came back from Evermore and… I don’t think he’s dealing well with Riko’s loss.” Wymack’s eyes darkened, confused, but he thought better not to ask. “A little more time.”  

Time, and space, and perhaps ceasing to exist for a little while—but that much, he kept to himself. Those weren’t things to say to anybody. As understanding as Wymack could be, it only concerned Jean.

Wymack sat back in his seat and sighed, rubbing his temples like Jean was the worst headache he’d ever had. He should have known recruiting a Raven would lead to this, but he’d let Renee and Neil optimistically sugarcoat it. It’s true, Neil was rather a realist—but Jean represented a non-neglictible weapon that, himself alone, could be enough to get them where they needed to be. Championships and even more, and, whether he was willing to admit it or not, he didn’t trust anyone else with Jean.

It takes a broken person to fix a broken person. And if they can’t get repaired, at least they can sit in silence, knowing, far from empty promises and hollow smiles and expectations. No questions asked. Only silence.

But Jean had stopped breathing to prevent the panic from invading his lungs, and now he was lost.

He wasn’t a backliner, not an athlete; he was barely human at all. Or perhaps that was precisely the most human he had ever been. Humanity wasn’t kindness; that much could be reproduced and imitated, faked, programmed—robots had proved themselves capable of it. No, it was pain.

Raw, excruciating, irrepressible and meaningless pain.

“We don’t have time,” Wymack said.

Neil stayed silent. He knew it was wiser to let Wymack decide patiently rather than rush the decision out of him—and, finally, Wymack looked up in exhaustion to give the final word.

“He needs to go see Betsy.”

“Why?” Neil asked, frowning. He didn’t have much affection for Betsy Dobson, but that wasn’t a secret. That he didn’t want Jean to see her was interesting enough for Wymack to raise a brow. It shouldn’t have been surprising.

“Why? Because he’s not okay, Neil. He needs someone.”

“He’s not alone,” Neil defended. He didn’t say it, but it still echoed all around: he has me. Somebody had had to tell Wymack Neil had changed dorms, leaving the Monsters’ comfortable and familiar room for something empty and dark that resembled the Nest in every way—from the lack of personal items to the eternally black surroundings, sunlight blocked, silence deafening.

“I’m talking about professional help here. You can’t bear the weight of it forever and you need to get back into practice: you are the vice-captain.”

“Dan can handle it for now, can’t she?” He wasn’t Captain yet, after all. “She’s handled it all this time even through the worst. Look where it got us.”

Wymack sighed again.

“Listen, Neil. Just get him to Betsy once. If it doesn’t work, we’ll talk about it and figure this out. For the moment he needs guidance and some relief. No offense, but you’re not exactly the most therapeutic thing out there. I don’t think you can get him that.”

It’d been quite some time since Neil had last brought trouble home with him. Now that everything was slowly going back to normal, people relaxed and breathed again, Neil included—and he didn’t find it fair to remain the dangerous thing Nathaniel Wesninski had once been. What Jean needed, he was sure he could give.

He at least had to try.

“Okay,” he nodded still, because there wasn’t much else to do. It was this, or kicking Jean out of the team.

 

 

“Hey.”

Jean didn’t reply.

The form remained unmoving on the bed they shared, but Neil didn’t reach out to see if he was asleep. He knew he wasn’t. From there he couldn’t see Jean’s eyes tiringly staring at the wall, but lately Jean could only sleep when Neil was there, breathing in his neck like the silent reminder he wasn’t alone.

“I talked with Coach.”

Jean didn’t reply.

“Would you…” Neil stoppd mid-sentence, sighing as he looked around. There wasn’t much to look at; it was the only bed in the room, and Jean didn’t change enough to leave scattered clothes all around. There was simply nothing. “You need to see Betsy.”

“Who is Betsy,” he let out in a tired murmur. It didn’t sound interested, but it sounded alert, like he was ready to get up and attack if somebody asked anything they shouldn’t.

Neil looked at his clothed back for a moment. “The team psychiatrist.”

He thought Jean would sound offended, perhaps even laugh bitterly as he refused to, but he didn’t move. He hardly even breathed.

“Please tell me I won’t have to drag you there myself. Because I don’t want to.”

Jean stayed silent.

“If you don’t, they will kick you out.”

That—that did something, though he didn’t know what exactly. He heard Jean’s breath hitch and stop, panicked, and then Jean was shaking again. Neil put a knee on the mattress and leaned in to bend over and grab a hand. Jean didn’t fight back, limp in his grip as Neil held his wrist. He rolled his trembling fingers into a fist and squeezed it tight, but Jean couldn’t calm down.

Being kicked out meant being alone again.

Being kicked out meant he didn’t belong anywhere.

It meant he had no purpose, no role, no home.

His parents had sold him to pay debts, Kevin had left, and Riko—Riko was—

“I’m not going to let this happen,” Neil said. He searched for Jean’s gaze in the intricate position they were in, but Jean kept them tightly shut. He refused. To open them, to see reality as it was, bland and painful.

He wanted to stay there and forget about everything.

Memories were fine to keep, no matter how harsh or violently sad—but the future, this he couldn’t bear. He didn’t want to project, no ambition, nothing to look forward to. Surviving was easy now that there was nothing to endure. There was only healing bruises, scars, silence, and the empty space Riko had left behind. Everything was gone.

He was gone, too.

“Do you hear me?” Neil tried, voice cracking with the impact of seeing Jean so vulnerable. “Jean, can you hear me?”

He thought silence would reply, as it always did—but it didn’t.

Jean kept his eyes shut but his lips parted, string of saliva stretching out between shiny teeth he probably hadn’t brushed in weeks. The whimper he let out—the plea—the cracked and imploring sound of it—Neil couldn’t stand.

His grip went loose around his wrist and he sat back on the mattress, resting a warm hand on top of Jean’s shoulder. It shook underneath, but he left it there still, waiting for Jean to cry himself to sleep until nothing would shake anymore.

And when he did, when Jean finally stopped howling in invisible pain and drifted to dreamless sleep, Neil left the dorm room and stopped in the corridor. He shut the door, leaned against it and, quietly, let himself slide to the ground.

It did no sound when he hit the floor. It did no sound when he clasped a horrored hand against his mouth and choked a sob himself, chest rising so violently he thought that was panic.

It wasn’t panic. It was empathy, it was remembrance, it was the moment Neil Josten couldn’t bear how much it hurt to look at Jean. Not quite to look at him like everyone else did, but to look, and to be unable to do anything about it. To leave Jean shaking under his touch and watch, and wait, and hope.

He stayed there for so long he finally gave up. It wasn’t like Jean would come out of the room anyway, and he buried his head in his arms, sitting there to rest a minute.

When athletes walked down the corridor to their rooms, he didn’t look up. Nobody stopped and pried, nobody asked anything—for which he was grateful for. But then someone stopped walking and the corridor went silent.

He didn’t look up, waiting for the voice he knew would speak up.

“How is he?”

Neil sighed, deeply. It was a sigh of fatigue and resentment, like he couldn’t forgive him for making Jean this way. “How do you want him to be?” Neil replied, dry.

Kevin went silent but didn’t leave.

Finally Neil looked up, face tired and dark, bags under his eyes bringing him ever so close to the lifeless thing he had been on the run all these years. Alert, mistrustful, lonely. Lost.

He met Kevin’s eyes, and they were exhausted with guilt.

“I won’t let you speak with him now.”

“I wasn’t going to,” Kevin shrugged. He looked down, and that’s perhaps the most vulnerable Neil had ever seen him. “He wouldn’t let me anyway.”

Kevin still wore the bruise of Jean’s hit where they had fought upon Jean’s arrival, but since then, it had been radio silence. Kevin couldn’t complain about that. He had nothing to defend himself with—nothing. The abuse he had gone through could never equal Jean’s. A broken hand was devastating—but it was quick and brutal, required more healing than suffering.

Jean, though, had gone through so many things he had never really had the time to sit back and take in all the pain. He’d been damaged too much to focus on one wound—harmonious in his destruction. Where Kevin was practically untouched, Jean was only scar tissue and healed bones.

Neil wondered if there was a thing Riko hadn’t broken in him.

“Coach says he needs Betsy.”

Kevin waited. He was relieved to know Neil didn’t hate him enough to keep silent, but he didn’t show it. He didn’t need to; the weight on his shoulders evaporated and he straightened. “And what do you say?”

Neil let his head rest against the wall and looked at his own palms. They were scarred but healed, dry where they usually were sweaty. He missed Exy so badly.

“I say Betsy can’t possibly understand.”

“That’s her job,” Kevin said, but when Neil didn’t reply, he sighed. “And you can?”

Neil looked up in a defensive frown. “It wasn’t the same as you. You were… privileged. You couldn’t be touched because they needed you in the end.” By now Kevin had looked away, guilty and hurt, but Neil didn’t stop there. “Jean didn’t have anyone to stand up for him,” he said, lips twisting in an ugly angry line. “He was alone, and then you left. What do you think it was like? To know what was coming and only have the opportunity to brace himself, if he couldn’t help it?”

Silence settled, heavy and pained.

“Jean was pushed too far.” He swallowed with difficulty. “He wasn’t like that when I was there.”

He was different.

Obedient but aware, cautious but alive. What Jean was now couldn’t possibly be called life or awareness. It was patience. Denial. Passiveness.

He was waiting for something that wouldn’t come, and Neil didn’t want to know if it was death or relief.

“Renee did what you should have done,” Neil snapped, and Kevin flinched with the subtle violence of it.

He’d never called Kevin a coward, because he wasn’t one; but this couldn’t be denied. Renee had had the strength to do what everyone had pretended not to know was necessary. She had taken Jean out of this hell and back to the real world, to the surface, to them.

“What you should have done long ago.”

Kevin’s throat tightened and Neil only stared, blank and cold. He dared wonder what Jean would have been like if Kevin had gotten him out of the Nest when it was still time. Renee had acted when it seemed there was no other choice, but Kevin—Kevin had seen it all, he had witnessed every bit of it. He should have known Jean had to get out.

He should have known if Jean stayed there too long, he would never come back unscathed.

“Do you resent me?” Kevin asked.

Neil looked at his hands again. “It’s not my role to resent you. It’s his.”

And, with that, he let the smallest, most vulnerable smile stretch his lips. It was so minuscule Kevin almost thought he’d imagined it, but he mirrored it in the same breath, too relieved to see Neil didn’t hate him even after all he had done. It wasn’t like Neil didn’t already know that before. Only—seeing Jean like this was too painful, and blaming Kevin too easy.

“I don’t know what to do,” Neil said, and his voice cracked with hopelessness.

Kevin watched, lost.

Maybe he had done the irreparable.

 

 

“They don’t look too bad,” Neil said as he glanced at Jean. He was sitting on the passenger seat of Andrew’s Maserati, wearing Allison’s expensive Ray-Ban sunglasses. They were as dark as his hair, and partially concealed the bruises still adorning his face, but he was still wearing the same outfit he had worn for days, and they looked out of place.

It could have been to hide the damage done to his face, but it was mostly because Jean’s eyes had gotten unaccustomed to sunlight after both the Nest and his isolated time in the dorms. Now the August sunrays only shied away past ten, and it was still sunny and warm out when they sat still in the Maserati, neatly parked in front of the building.

It was the end of the day, way past appointment hours, but Neil had specifically asked Betsy for a schedule where Jean wouldn’t have to bump into anyone. Technically speaking, Jean didn’t have to meet the team psychiatrist yet, and nobody except Andrew really did outside the semestrial mandatory visits. But they both knew this was Jean’s last chance of being a Fox, his last opportunity of staying at Fox Tower and Palmetto, even if he didn’t come out of his room. He had earned enough money to get used to luxury over the years, thanks to publicity contracts and his envied status, but Neil didn’t doubt he wouln’t use it if he was kicked out of PSU. He would only sit somewhere, and wait, and then rot all lone.

If he didn’t have Neil, he had no one.

Renee could help, he knew, but she didn’t know how to. People like her, their fights were done. They had recovered from everything they were supposed to. Jean’s fight had only begun.

And Neil’s—well, Neil didn’t think he would ever truly recover.

It made sense that Jean wouldn’t totally.

“I don’t—” Jean started, but his voice was weak and fatigued and broke in his throat. “Come with me.”

He didn’t say please, too prideful and irritated to, but Neil nodded anyway.

The psychiatric ward was empty at this time of the day. Nobody sat in the waiting room but them, and though Jean kept his gaze fixed on his fingers as he nervously scratched his nails, Neil looked around to make sure they would be left alone.

Then Betsy appeared before them and he got up. Jean followed but looked away, neatly avoiding Betsy’s offered palm.

She looked at Neil for a moment. “It’s nice to see you both there.”

“I’m only here for him.”

Betsy nodded. “A pleasure to finally meet you, Jean.” Jean didn’t answer, but somehow Neil doubted she had ever expected him to. “Will you follow me to my office please?”

Jean instantly looked at Neil and he figured he was panicking. A calloused hand wrapped around his arm and squeezed, throat tight, but Neil only smiled. It was a wobbly and timid thing, hardly convincing, but it was enough to ease Jean a little.

“I’ll be waiting here.”

They stared each other down for a minute, and then eventually Jean looked to the floor and dropped his hand. Betsy nodded again, assuming this meant he was ready to follow her, and turned to take the lead. Neil parted his lips to say something but nothing came out.

 

 

“How was it?” Neil asked. They were sitting in the Maserati again, engine stopped and sun setting. The darker it got, the odder Jean looked with Allison’s sunglasses on.

“Cold.” Neil wondered if it meant the temperature or the exchange in Betsy’s office, but he didn’t ask. Jean was wearing a thick black sweater he knew came from Edgar Allan, and dark grey sweatpants he had seen him wear several days in a row.

He frowned.

“You need a shower.”

Jean frowned in his turn, annoyed. He looked ready to tell him to shut up but, before he could, he looked away and froze.

Neil sighed.

“Let me help.” He paused, looking at the building where sunrays reflected on the façade in a warm orange shade. “If I don’t, you never will.”

And he was right.

He stood there as Jean stripped in the dorm bathroom, way too used to the Nest’s system to be shy of his appearance. He faced the mirror, naked, but caught his reflection and looked away too violently for it to be accidental. Neil’s throat tightened.

“I can cover it.”

Jean caught his eyes, inquiring.

“The mirror. I can cover it if you can’t handle your reflection.”

Jean stared without looking away. Then, slowly, he nodded, and watched as Neil grabbed a towel and pinned it to the wall. It made the room look darker than it already was, deprived of windows, but it made it feel safer too.

Neil turned the water on and Jean stepped in, losing his balance as he did. He grabbed the edge of the bathtub and sat down, bringing his knees back against him, looking so vulnerable Neil had to tear his eyes off for a brief second.

Jean sat under the water flow, eyes closed, resting his chin on top of his knees as he wrapped tight arms around his calves. He was a formless pile of bruised human flesh and nothing more.

“What did she tell you?” Neil asked as he sat on the toilets and examined the opposite wall. It was oddly calm, like they had done this plenty of times—and really, they had. The intimacy they had shared in the Nest was far into the past, but it was easy to feel it coming back when they were alone.

It was natural, effortless. Without lies or judgment.

Raw.

“To get rid of my clothes.” Neil frowned and he went on, closing his eyes. “Those I brought with me out of the Nest.”

Neil looked at the crumpled sweatshirt resting on the floor. Most of Jean’s clothes were black.

“Will you do it?” Neil asked.

“Should I?” Jean looked at him.

Neil’s lips parted, breathless, realizing the hold he really had on Jean. It was as surprising as it was intimidating, and for a moment Neil wondered if he really could make a difference. He nodded, grimly. As odd as attachment to personal items and material seemed to Neil, he knew some people couldn’t part with things that had meaning.

Whether it was a car, a picture or a bunch of sportswear, it didn’t matter. As long as it was there, Jean was still somewhere in the Nest, waiting for Tetsuji’s hurried steps down the corridor, or Riko’s unforgiving voice.

He didn’t like Betsy. He didn’t trust her, either. But Jean had to start somewhere, and if he didn’t know where, then he had to let someone else guide him to the first step. This seemed to be enough for now.

“I think you should.”

Jean stared then tightened his lips in obedience. He looked at the shower drain and closed his eyes. Then Neil leaned in and grabbed soap, poured it down his palm, and started to wash Jean’s hair.


	3. got lost in the game, and i’m tired

“How is he doing?” Renee asked when Neil sat on the bench to lace his shoes again. The rest of the Foxes were already running around the Court, but Renee was standing there, soft and patient.

“He is trying.”

Renee nodded.

“I am content.”

“Why?” Neil said as he straightened up on the bench. He didn’t like Renee more than that, but he also couldn’t understand why she would find contentment in such a gloomy situation.

“He has you.” Renee smiled, warm, then went on. “I know I can’t bring him the sort of comfort you do. And I am glad you have his back.”

Neil didn’t answer.

“Well then. Time to practice I suppose,” she said, and smiled again as she glanced at the Foxes. Matt and Dan were slowing down, laughing crazily about something the rest of the Foxes visibly didn’t understand. “It’s good to have you back on the team. It’s different without you.”

She walked back, ready to job down the last steps, then said, “tell Jean I said hi.”

Neil watched as she went away and got up in his turn, moving his shoulders around. He couldn’t wait to hold a racquet in his hands, but each minute he spent far from Jean was one he spent worrying, wondering what Jean was doing.

It wasn’t like Jean was doing much at all. His daily routine consisted of sleepless nights and sedated days, swallowing the anxiety pills Betsy had provided. The nights he spent wrapped by Neil’s familiar arms, and the days, drifting somewhere nobody could reach him.

It was a lonely, silent life—but it was enough for Jean to breathe, and Neil knew it. He had gone to the weights room with the Foxes the day before, and to the strategy reunion the day before that, but today was a day of scrimmage and he couldn’t tear his eyes off Kevin. Not out of anger, but out of curiosity, somehow, wondering how Kevin handled the fact that Jean was there, somewhere, crying himself to sleep until he’d pass out from the medicine.

It was like seeing a ghost.

“Good to see you,” Dan greeted with a playful smile as she ran to him. Neil slowed down so Dan wouldn’t be left behind, and smiled back without a word.

Allison slapped a hand against his shoulder as she ran past, and he searched the Foxes for Andrew. He was at the back running beside Renee, looking unbothered as usual, and Kevin was too focused on his warmup to even care.

“Jean will be ready soon,” he said to Dan, because Dan was probably the one he should tell this to. “You have to be patient.”

“We are, we are,” Dan reassured.

They turned around the corner and Wymack clapped his hands to get them all moving. The juniors who hadn’t quite started running instantly did, and Nicky grunted as he traded his lazy walk for a soft jog.

He yelled he hated running, and Wymack yelled back he hated them all but still survived. Dan chuckled at Neil’s sides, the Court suddenly filled with distant chatters and running shoes creaking against the floor.

“I can’t say I know what he’s been through. But we have been patient with you and look how this turned out.” She looked at Neil, and though he wasn’t smiling, he knew he was glad to be them. They were his family after all. “This is where you belong. I don’t know where Jean belongs, but if he’s willing to try, then so am I.”

“What about the rest?” Neil asked, because most of the Foxes had shown clear disapproval when Jean had participated to the scrimmage, the last time.

“They’re worried. I get that.” She glanced at them, then back to where they were heading at a reasonable speed. “They don’t know Jean and Jean doesn’t know them. It’s normal to be afraid. But they’ll get used to the idea, eventually. I’ll talk to them.”

Neil knew them meant Allison and Matt, above all, more than reluctant to welcome another Raven on their lineup. Kevin had been enough of an effort, and then Neil’s true identity had shaken them some more. Jean they weren’t sure they could handle, and though they had loudly disapproved from the start, Renee and Neil’s voices had been louder.

“He needs us,” Neil said.

Dan smiled. “I don’t think he needs us.” Neil didn’t know what this meant—if Jean was strong enough to not need anyone, or if he only needed Neil. Dan didn’t say. “But we can give him comfort and stability. And a team, of course.”

Neil nodded. Edgar Allan had plunged into a dark period after Riko’s death. Many things had been brought to the surface by the media, putting unwanted attention on their excessive trainings and unhealthy pressuring. Nobody mentioned physical abuse, but this was by far enough to send the Ravens through thorough examination, and Jean had gotten out in time.

Now the Ravens were bound to fail until they found stability again, which, without Riko and his stronger players, would take years.

Tetsuji Moriyama had resigned and for a moment, it had all felt like everything was slowly getting better. Neil figured better didn’t mean perfect.

“Listen,” Dan said, “why don’t we gather as a team tonight? Nobody has practice tomorrow, and I think most of us need a drink lately.”

The Monsters hadn’t gone to Columbia since Jean had arrived, and Allison and Renee had been too busy to take part in the usual soirées in their dorm. Neil wasn’t sure he wanted to spent more time than necessary with the new recruits, distrustful and good in his comfort zone, but most importantly, he didn’t want them anywhere near Jean.

“Do you think he’ll say yes?” Neil said, arching a doubtful brow.

“Ask him,” Dan shrugged warmly. “You’ll see.”

 

 

Jean stood in the semi-darkness where Neil had finally plugged a lamp in the corner. It was sitting on the ground as there was no furniture in the living room, but it was enough for now.

“I look stupid.”

Neil shrugged. “Who cares,” he said instead of trying to reassure him into thinking otherwise.

Jean was wearing Neil’s sweatpants, and they stopped inches below his knee. Jean had refused to let Neil ask Matt anything, and Neil doubted Nicky’s colorful clothing pattern would be something Jean would accept to wear anyway. There he was now, wearing Neil’s darkest sweatpants, pale skin easy to spot where it prematurely stopped.

“Nobody’s going to notice okay? They’re here to drink.”

At that, something on Jean’s face twitched and Neil straightened.

“You’ve never drunk have you?”

Jean kept silent.

“When was the last time you took your meds?”

“I was planning on taking them now.” He frowned, pensive. “But meds and alcohol don’t do well do they.”

Neil shook his head unnecessarily. It took a moment for Jean to decide.

“If I don’t take them, I don’t know what’s going to happen.”

“What’s the worst that could happen then?”

Jean gave it a thought. “Kevin, perhaps.”

“Kevin won’t start a fight. He’s in for the vodka, believe me.” Even if he wasn’t, his guilt would have been enough to keep him at a distance, Neil knew. “The upperclassmen just want to relieve the pressure and have some fun. Renee never drinks, and I rarely ever do. You won’t be alone.”

“Can I drink?”

Neil shrugged. “If you want to.”

“If I drink, will you want drink with me?”

Neil’s lips parted but he didn’t reply. Jean waited a moment, then shook his head and huffed in bitterness. He wasn’t as stupid as to think Neil would get himself drunk for Jean’s comfort.

“Forget about i—”

“Okay,” Neil cut him off. Jean’s eyes were cold and disbelieving, so he repeated, a little louder as Jean pulled on the bottom hem of his Palmetto t-shirt: “Okay.”

 

 

The upperclassmen held the party in the girls’ room as usual. It was far more welcoming and Matt and Aaron’s nonchalant dorm, and Andrew wouldn’t let them anywhere near his own. Given the lack of furniture and the current state of the one he shared with Jean now, Neil decided it was better in the comfortable, fairy lights-filled space of Dan, Allison and Renee.

Renee smiled to Jean as soon as he appeared beside him at the door. She let them in and Allison yelled in enthusiasm, spotting Neil—then went silent when she spotted Jean too. Everyone stared expectantly, but Allison shrugged and proudly lifted her chin. “Whatever. He can come.”

Dan shook her head and got up to gather a few bottles. Sober Jean was quiet and disinterested, disdainful when addressed, but he stood so close to Neil he almost looked vulnerable. He gently pulled on Neil’s sleeve and they both sat down on the other side of the coffee table the girls had arranged on the center of the room.

Red cups were already filled to the brim and Renee had brought enough juices to satisfy everyone, with a plate of cookies she had made in the afternoon. Renee pushed the plate Jean’s way, and he politely grabbed one, but didn’t eat.

He kept it in his hand, too paralyzed to move, chocolate melting on his fingertips as Neil glanced down at it. Before he could say anything, though, Dan had already grabbed his attention. Renee had disappeared in the corridor to open the door, probably letting Matt in. Neil heard Nicky’s voice behind him.

“What would you like to drink?” Dan asked her both.

Jean looked up in surprise, eyes wide as though he hadn’t anticipated that question. Neil shared a glance with him and then back to Dan. “Alcohol,” he just said, because he didn’t know much more than that.

Dan frowned in confusion but nodded. “I thought you didn’t drink.”

“I don’t,” Neil said. He didn’t bother giving explanations—there weren’t any to give.

“Will tequila do?” she asked as she rummaged through the half-emptied bottles standing between them. Neil nodded and Jean didn’t move. They watched as Dan filled their cups and let them choose between the juices and syrups to dilute the tequila.

“Neil!” Matt and Nicky both said in unison. Neil looked up and smiled, a little embarrassed to suddenly be the center of the attention, but Nicky could never focus long enough and he already was bickering with Allison. Matt sank next to Neil and Neil silently thanked him for leaving Jean enough space.

Twenty minutes later Kevin and Aaron arrived, the latter hand-in-hand with Katelyn, and they all settled at their usual places in the room, sheltering their drinks or downing their cups eagerly. Neil and Jean had sipped their cautiously, but then Nicky and Allison insisted on playing a drinking game and Jean gave him a distressed look.

He could have ignored it, but Neil put a reassuring hand on Jean’s knee. Jean didn’t push it away.

It didn’t take long to make Jean and Neil drink. Though Jean had barely said a word save for the concise and moderate answers he had given to questions sent his way, the game got him talking instantly. It wasn’t all soft and timid—Neil even thought he would get in a fight with Allison at some point—but it was fascinating to watch Jean come back to life.

He knew he only did because of the liquor flowing in his veins, each sip sending him closer to the edge, but he couldn’t complain.

They played two other games and, by then, Jean was drunk beyond awareness, chuckling low at Nicky’s jokes. He wasn’t the kind of person he would have befriended on his own will usually, but they were both wasted and in need of entertainment, and Neil watched as Nicky whispered things into Jean’s ear—far enough to not trigger any trauma—and as both looked up to him in childish amusement.

“What?” he would ask, cheeks flushed by the alcohol. He had mostly drunk Allison’s overly sweet cocktails specially made for him, as she had feared too much pure alcohol would drive him away, but he had to admit those cocktails were easy enough to drink without moderation. He couldn’t tell how many he had downed.

Jean grinned, mocking, and Nicky gave an exaggerated shrug. “Nothing.”

Neil shook his head, but couldn’t help glance back at Jean. Their eyes met, though not for long, Jean’s attention sought again and again by people Neil didn’t even think would bother talking to him at all.

It was one in the morning when Matt and Nicky made an eating contest over the remaining pizza, Dan and Katelyn cheering them on until they cried of laughter. Allison and Jean were discussing luxury brands Neil didn’t even know by name, and Kevin and Aaron were in a deep conversation about French kings. Kevin seemed to lose patience each passing second, as Aaron’s puzzled drunk eyes tried to make sense of the things he was being told. He asked if Napoleon was a king, and Kevin looked at the ceiling to hold himself back. Andrew, who had joined in already tipsy an hour ago, was sitting next to them and scrolling through his phone, disinterested by the debate.

Katelyn caught the interaction and giggled, meanwhile Renee sank down at Neil’s side.

“Are you having fun?” Renee said.

Neil watched everyone for a moment. They were all so deeply unaware, alcohol playing them so easily. Most were enjoying the night, others were distracted enough to have a good time anyway.

“I think I am.”

“Good,” Renee said, then offered half a cookie.

Neil accepted it without a word and chewed on it in silence. He wasn’t too much of a sweet tooth, but he had to admit they were good. He surprised himself realizing Renee and him had never talked in so little time, but she wasn’t quite bothering.

If anything, her presence was reassuring; if anything went wrong she would be able to act and decide in a split second. Renee smiled and Neil knew this was an encouragement to completely let go. He nodded a thank you and downed his drink in one go, squeezing his eyes shut as he swallowed. It was less sweet than the last one, and he could easily spot the vodka.

“Rough, isn’t it?” Renee said.

“Have you ever drunk?”

“I used to,” Renee shrugged, pensive. “I realized this just wasn’t for me. I feel better knowing I can take care of all of you, and I don’t need alcohol to enjoy myself.”

Neil knew this didn’t mean all of them were boring—this meant they had things to let go of, inhibitions they didn’t want. Renee was herself no matter what, uncaring, tolerant. People like Neil and Jean, they needed to drink until they couldn’t spell their names if they really wanted to be like everyone else.

“I think he’s waiting for you,” Renee pointed at Jean who was looking at Neil from his place on the empty couch, Nicky tripping his way to the bathroom.

“Thank you,” Neil said, though he wasn’t sure he was talking about the cookie. Renee gave a genuine smile and he got up, a little bit slowly than he usually would. He chuckled when Matt caught him red-handed and howled encouragement, and walked, cheeks pink, to where Jean was casually sitting.

He didn’t look undamaged, but he looked pleased. Letting go, after all these years, must have felt good, Neil realized.

“Here you are,” Neil said as he sat down—or more so, let himself fall on the couch.

Jean mocked. “I was there the whole time.”

“Shut up,” Neil said, and leaned in to grab the first full cup he found. It smelled like Allison, so he drank it.

“Drinking much, I see.”

Neil snorted. “I have to catch up with you, after all.”

Jean tightened his lips but looked more amused than offended. He let his head fall backwards until it hit the wall, and they shared a silent look.

Then Neil cleared his throat and realizing they needed something to talk about now. They had always been comfortable with silence before, but now, they were both drunk and confused, and silence felt way too wrong.

“So,” Neil started.

“So,” Jean mimicked.

They went silent and stared some more.

Before they could say something, though, Dan got up and moved around a few DVDs in the air. “Which one guys?”

Allison, Nicky and Kevin instantly started yelling, and Matt threw a chip at her, but Neil didn’t pay attention.

“Do you want in?” Neil asked.

“What are they doing?” Jean asked, stranger to their routines.

“They’re going to watch a movie. Two perhaps.”

Jean looked at them, all smiling and laughing and bickering like children. “No, I think I will pass. I’m not too keen on movies.”

Neil nodded. Neither was he.

“We can go back if you want.”

“Yeah.” Jean finished his drink and put it on the table, then Renee appeared out of nowhere and handed Neil the sweatshirt he had shed along the way, alcohol getting him too hot for it.

“How did you know we were leaving?” Neil asked.

“You look like old men at a kid’s party,” Renee chuckled. It was meant to be a joke, but Jean looked away in an embarrassed laughter. Neil peeped, curious. “If you need pills for the headache you will probably have tomorrow morning, Allison always keeps tabs in her aid kit.”

“She’s got an aid kit?”

Renee smiled. “It’s mostly nail polish.”

Neil grabbed the sweatshirt Renee handed him and Renee gave them a bowl of chips to bring with them. Then, at the last second, she held out the rest of the Sprite bottle they had mixed alcohol and pineapple juice in.

“Take this.”

Neil looked down at it, but accepted anyway. “Thank you.”

“Don’t mention it.”

She smiled and then they were gone, disappearing in a blink without anyone noticing. Matt starting calling Neil back but Renee shut the door and dissuaded him, which left Neil smiling in the corridor. Jean stared at it, knowing through his drunken haze how rare a sight it really was.

They walked to their dorm and sank on the bed. They could still hear the music pumping from the girls’ room, but then it suddenly cut and Neil knew they had started their movie. A few laughters still made it to their room, but the peace they found was welcome.

Jean let himself fall back against the bed and it bounced under their weight. Neil drank a sip, then another, and suddenly he felt Jean still.

He didn’t look back, unsure what he would find in Jean’s eyes. He held his breath when he felt something brush against his back, slide down in a numbing caress that made Neil close his eyes; then slip under the fabric and slide up his back. It was Jean’s palm, wide and warm, bringing pleasurable shivers up his spine with each move, and Neil relaxed under his touch, sighing as Jean’s hand went up and down.

It was slow, and soft, gentle enough that it surprised him Jean would ever do that. Perhaps it was the alcohol, he thought, or perhaps Jean was something he didn’t fully know yet, capable of the tenderness he wanted for himself.

Neil glanced above his shoulder and met Jean’s eyes.

“How are you?” he asked. He only asked because he knew Jean was feeling different than usual, far from the paralyzing depression and everything that crept up in the shadows.

He even _looked_  different.

Jean took a moment to answer.

“I’m okay.” He swallowed, eyes unblinking. “Everything is okay.”

Needless to say this wouldn’t last, but they didn’t bother pointing it out. Instead, Neil put the bottle on the ground and let himself fall at Jean’s sides, his hand still stroking formless lines under his shirt.

Neil crashed half against him, and they watched each other, ever so close. They didn’t say anything.

They really, really didn’t say anything.

It took an eternity for them to lean in. They took their time, breathing hard, unmoving like they couldn’t really. Neil swallowed again when his nose brushed against Jean’s, and they both could already tell the recognizable breaths of drunkenness.

But they didn’t speak. They didn’t smile, either. They looked down at each other’s mouth as they slowly, slowly got closer, necks craning imperceptibly, bodies sliding closer without them noticing.

Jean’s hand started moving again but stilled at his waist, and his fingers curled around it, possessive, as Neil kept his own against his stomach. Then they were close enough to touch, and it’d only take a whisper for them to.

Neil’s eyes flicked up but Jean was staring at his lips. He watched as Jean’s eyelids slowly closed, heavy, lips parting before they even met, accepting, inviting—wanting.

They kissed lazily at first, so lazily they weren’t even sure they were still awake. But then Jean’s fingers dug a little deeper into Neil’s flesh and Neil slid a hand to Jean’s hair, pulling gently; and they were kissing again, reasonable but comfortable, giving and taking equally, wanting without really knowing why. They just did.

They lost each other in their touch without asking questions, and when Jean stilled against him, Neil languidly dragged his lips to his cheek, kissing the bruised flesh there. Kissing the tattoo. Kissing the bones he knew must have been broken once.

He tried to reach for his forehead but Jean was too tall, and suddenly Jean’s hands were around him, pulling him close and upwards. Jean rested his face against Neil’s chest and Neil wrapped his arms around his neck like his mother used to do when he was sick. He wondered if anyone had ever held Jean like this.

Probably not, he realized, and his heart broke with the thought.

He held Jean closer, running soft fingers into his hair as Jean sighed, soothed by the caress.

A loud laughter echoed from the girls’ room but they were already halfway to sleep, too exhausted to care.


	4. for blue skies

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi it’s me gab do you remember. i wasn’t able to write in so long but tonight i got the Feelings so i thought I’d finish that chapter i’d started a long, long time ago. I think I’m not done with this so I’ll probably write a chapter five someday
> 
> if you follow me on tumblr you probably saw I deleted both my blogs—you can follow my new one @[innersystem](http://innersystem.tumblr.com). also if you know where my music anon went (@atomickryptoniteduck) please tell me because I miss the fuck out of her
> 
> anyways I’m emo right now and didn’t reread this thing I wrote in like four times, didn’t edit, didn’t correct, please don’t cringe. listen to sad songs while reading otherwise it’s not funny.

"Tell me about your scars," Neil whispers. It's early in the morning, and he can't remember when he had last closed his eyes. He couldn't remember when he had seen Jean asleep either. He had probably stayed awake for days now, unable to let himself rest yet unable to get up.

"Why?" Jean whispers back. It's quiet, like a secret. It almost feels safe.

It definitely feels safe. But he asks, still, because those scars aren't things you talk about at sunrise. They are forgotten, shamefully, belonging to the past forever. Yet Neil's hand is on his, trailing gentle circles and soothing the tired muscles he cannot seem to let unfold.

"Because they are important."

Jean looks up, and there's confusion, so much confusion his those pearly eyes that do not say it. His lips tremble a protest that doesn't make it out, and Neil pulls on the collar of Jean's loose t-shirt. It's Wymack, he recalls, way too oversized for Jean's lanky shoulders. The broad frame of confidence and fierceness he had briefly met on the Court was gone now; all brittle bones and fearful eyes.

"This one," Neil chooses, nail gently scratching on pink flesh. It's a simple cut below Jean's clavicle, so shy and small amongst the rest of them. Jean looks down though he can only glance at it, wondering why Neil would ask about those which do not matter. The scratches, the incidents, the never-minds.

He tries to remember.

"The cane scratched me open." He smiles, clumsily, trying to mask the ugliness of it all underneath a little pride. Neil isn't fooled, but he says nothing. He doesn't need to ask who did this; he already knows all too much.

His fingertips trail, wander distractedly, working their way up Jean's jaw and stilling on a patch of scar tissue.

"I remember this one." His voice is a sigh, a prayer, almost; not quite daring awakening the ghosts from their past. Neil looks up to make sure it is alright, to make sure he has the right to venture on these grounds. Jean's eyes are colder now, he can feel it—but he stills underneath his fingers and lets him invade scar after scar, souvenir after souvenir. "Fire has never been Riko's best use."

It's harsh, perhaps—brutally honest in a way only Neil can be. It only takes a second to realize his mistake and he holds his breath, fearing a sudden shift in Jean's cautiousness, but he stares only, he stares, he never looks away like tearing his eyes off Neil might kill him for good. Like it would be reviving those moments all over again.

"Sorry," he tries. It sounds odd in his mouth, he who never apologized much, much less to Jean—but Jean's eyes wander on his own cheek and he can feel the weight of his gaze. "Not one to talk, am I?" he smiles, cruelly so, maybe to convince himself he is stronger than this. Stronger than this father. "What about this one?" he asks after a long silence, and Jean's eyes follow the tip of his index, shyly brushing tender skin on his shoulder.

Against all odds, Jean chuckles. It's low, feeble, almost too weak to be real, but Neil hears it ricochet around the room and back into his thoughts. It's not a sound he thinks he can forget.

"I was twelve," Jean smiles. It's not for Neil, he knows, it's for who Jean used to be. A child, innocent then, happy perhaps even. He wouldn't dare ask such things and Jean isn't one to linger on the details. He knows he'd never been happy himself, at least. He suspected Jean's background to be a different kind of twisted. Somber, almost hopeless, nothing an eight year old should ever have to wake up to anyway. "I cut myself on a bike. We used to explore those old abandoned buildings junkies would squat and trash. There were entire neighbors in Marseille—too shabby to be maintained and eventually relocated. The slope was a little too dangerous and my brakes jammed. I didn't have time to think about it—when I opened my eyes, I was on the other side of the glass door. A piece of glass got into my jacket and sliced my skin."

"So you know how to ride a bike?" Neil asks, dumbly so, realizing he had never quite imagined Jean could have been a child, doing childish things.

"Don't you?" Jean sneers, but it's as much of an attack as it can be. He knows, deep inside, that there aren't many things Neil learned under the Butcher's roof. If any, then those things weren't meant for children.

Questions were asked, silently, as Jean pulled on the bottom of Neil's shirt and explored his torso. It was wrecked as he knew it would be; he had seen it all too many times. Only, he had never really looked at it before. Not like this anyway.

"Sometimes I wish I could wake up in my childhood bed. That all of this would be a nightmare I could chase away in a blink and get over by lunchtime. Forget eventually."

"I don't think people like us can ever forget these things." Neil looked down, and Jean's hand fell flat on the mattress between them. Suddenly the magic was gone, and so was Jean's ghostly childlike memory. Neil wondered what Jean would look like now if he had grown up happy. "It's best to remember where we come from and what we have learned. There isn’t much to learn from it, but that's the best bet we have."

"Perhaps," Jean sighed. He looked away, eyes wandering through the window, where shades of gray were already painting the world. The neighboring buildings appeared like monsters from the shadowy night, and Jean felt less alone.

He would soon collapse from exhaustion, Neil guessed. And there was relief, only relief, knowing he couldn't fight any longer against himself. Maybe tomorrow.

"This one you gave me," Neil recalled as he turned his bare forearm around. An old cut buried under Lola's doing was still proudly showing, curtesy of Jean's friendship. Not that they had ever been friends, back then—it was more of a pact, of a quiet promise to keep each other alive because, what else could they do? It was a war, an invisible one, and nobody else would come for them.

"I can't remember," Jean frowns. Neil looks up, almost alarmed, but he meets the distant distress in Jean's foreign eyes. Fatigue, trauma, all these things messing him up from the inside. Jean didn't even know what time it was. He barely had enough sense to tell whether the sun was rising or disappearing again. Sometimes it seemed he was disappearing, too, some days longer than others.

"It's okay," Neil reassures. It's still clumsy in its gentleness, and Neil knows he's got work to do to be convincing. He hopes Jean will sooner need less of it; this fragile comfort he doesn't feel like he can even provide.

But Jean grabs his hand anyway, and slowly kisses it. They're in the dark, quiet and colorless, so it feels okay—it feels healing.

So Neil pushes him down with him and traces a scar after another, staring into Jean's eyes to make sure they disappear, slowly, slowly, leaving his body bare and intact—the fragile remnants of a twelve year old who didn't know how to ride a bike.

 

* * *

 

The next day, when Neil came back from practice, he found Jean standing in the living room. The blinds were pulled open, and the window open; there, looking lost as ever, Jean was looking at the rain.

Neil ruffled the droplets out of his hair and stepped in. He didn't bother to clear his throat, nor did he say hello—he never did. More important, even: this was the first time he had ever seen Jean voluntarily staring back at the world. It wasn't much, this late in this afternoon, and their dorm's view only gave way to a few trees and some drenched cars clumsily parked in a haste. The wind was blowing so hard, so lively, that for a moment, Neil wondered if Jean had ever felt it.

He stopped by his side and pulled something out of his jean's pocket. It was so easy to leave it to Andrew to carry the never-ending packs of cigarettes, but since Neil had moved in with Jean, he didn't get to see the Foxes very much. Nobody really knew why he would put so much effort in someone like that—someone like Jean. To most, he was a desperate case. To the rest, he was only pitiful.

Neil didn't see any of that. He didn't see much—nothing that he hadn't already seen. A broken boy, trying to heal over and over again, never quite able to forget. Some nights he would keep his eyes open until exhaustion would dawn upon him, still expecting Riko's ghost to step through the door. Jean was the same boy he had learned to despise and tolerate at Evermore; except he was alone, now.

Not entirely alone, though.

"Do you want one?" he asked, more for the formality than for the thought.

Jean watched him pull a cigarette out of his pack and frowned. It looked like disgust, but Neil knew it was something else; Jean was never as easy and as a single, pathetic word. He was the entire universe shoved down a smile or a threat, a mere reflection of some banal definition. Jean was everything he could never say out loud, everything he still caught in Kevin's absent eyes once in a while, the glimpse he could sometimes get of himself whenever he looked up in the mirror. It was the burn, perhaps, or what it once had been. Or maybe it was the eyes, a cursed heirloom he could never quite get rid of.

"I don't smoke," Jean said after an uneasy silence. It was as long an answer as he would give, so Neil shrugged.

"Neither do I."

It took another moment of contemplation and, finally, with hesitant and shaky fingers, all slender and scarred, Jean slid one out. He stared at Neil as he lit his, and stared a little longer when he handed the lighter without taking any drag.

"You really don't," he stated, almost for himself. He had never seen Neil smoke at Evermore after all—not that the Ravens were ever allowed to smoke anyway.

He glanced at his own cigarette one last time, wondering if, after all these years of healthy conditioning, it would be worth the try—but a second later it was pinched in between Jean's tense lips, and Neil lit it without a word.

Silence stretched, Jean choked smoke out of his mouth, and Neil witnessed it that simply. Maybe it was Andrew's attitude growing on him, or maybe he had learned to restrain himself from unnecessary things: unwanted conversations, fake smiles, empty laughters. He looked at Jean like someone would look through a window; wandering, never judging, perhaps searching for a little bit of themselves in what they would catch.

"Why do you do this?" Jean asked. It was strained, like it had taken every fiber of himself to keep his mouth shut. "This," he added when Neil didn't understand.

Jean's icy eyes slid down to Neil's burned hand, holding the cigarette close enough to smell its smoke, but yet not close enough to inhale it. It was obvious, by now, that he wouldn't take a single drag.

Neil hesitated. There had been things shared and whispered, shamefully perhaps, when they were only two ghosts roaming along the black corridors of Evermore. They had said them out of exhaustion, out of hope, perhaps; out of stubbornness even. He knew some things about Jean he hadn't read in newspapers, and Jean knew more about him than he had ever told the Foxes.

He knew. He knew he could—he knew Jean would understand. Every Fox had gone through something harsh, something unfair that they hadn't come unharmed out of. But Jean had something more, like he was scarred down to the core, like he couldn't be mended back together even if he tried. It should have been a desolate sight, but Neil found it comforting instead. Jean after all, had become something—someone—so familiar and so comfortably unashamed that he didn't even need to lie anymore.

And for someone who had lied his entire life, it was like breathing in for the first time.

"I burned my mother when she died." He paused, expecting Jean to react, but he didn't even get a glance. He knew Jean was listening by the way his frown tightened, eyes wandering on the moving trees, somehow lulled by the sound of the long-awaited rain. "I couldn't leave traces as big as a corpse, and I couldn't bury her properly. So I burned the car and dug a hole for what remained."

"What remained?" Jean asked, surprisingly. It was a gloomy question, but Neil didn't flinch. Without knowing why, he did the opposite; turning slightly towards him like the words had been an invitation.

"Her bones. There were only bones." He didn't mention how excruciating the process had been—trying to get her corpse out of the car, the nauseating smell of fresh blood, the way her flesh had melted onto the seat. He had done what he could, back then, and he knew he wouldn't change a thing if he could. Nothing could make his mother come back anyway.

He thought he felt a stern hand tug a strand of hair, but there was no one.

"What about yours?"

"Absent," Jean whispered, and contemplated his cigarette before trying again. "Lost. Immature. Desperate for a way out." He didn't need to say the way out had been himself. Neil knew enough about humanity's cruelty.

Neil brought his cigarette closer and closed his eyes. It was a long moment before anyone spoke up again.

"Good talk," Jean mocked, tone sour but not enough for Neil to be alarmed. It was only how Jean reacted to vulnerability, he had learned. People like Jean didn't open up; they cracked open ever so slightly, before shutting down even tighter than they had before. Each word taken out of Jean's lips wasn't a reply; it was a gift.

Jean disappeared into the bedroom where, Neil knew, the blinds were still tightly shut to leave him in bottomless darkness. He watched the half-cigarette Jean had ground into the windowsill get blown away by the wind, and then he took a drag. A single drag, without really knowing why, no matter how much he hated the burn on the back of his throat. He closed his eyes, listened to the wind, and threw his cigarette into the rain before closing the window.

He went to lay next to Jean and nobody said a word.

 

* * *

 

Jean didn't get better as per say. He didn't go see the team psychiatrist, he didn't even go to practice. He was there without being there—and he was okay with that kind of ghostliness. Each time the Foxes brought him up, Neil asked for more time. Each time Wymack slowly shook his head, Renee reassured it was the thing to do.

Leave him time. Leave him space. And Wymack, who had seen all kinds of broken, wasn't really sure he could ever mend this one.

But Neil didn't ask himself that question. He could see things from another perspective, perhaps this of a Raven, this of a broken boy who had nothing left to live for. He had intercepted Andrew's vaguely curious stares the first day, like he was trying to measure how miserable and deadweight Jean Moreau's case was. He knew this was because Andrew had seen hell. He knew what it took to get out of it. He knew that sometimes hell wasn't a place you could ever leave, but one you had to get used to day after day. Scar after scar.

He could feel Jean becoming more himself each time he entered the room. But sometimes, every now and then, he would slip up again—and disappear into a plane of existence Neil had only experienced once.

When Jean, once again, refused to go to the Home match, nobody said anything. It had become something each of the Foxes had come to terms with—the quiet acceptation that Jean Moreau maybe couldn't be saved. Lodging him in the dorms had been a hard deal to make, and he hadn't once showed to a match, even just to sit in the sidelines.

But when Neil closed the door behind him, he didn't find the living room empty as it usually was: Jean was sitting there, on the ground, elbows resting helplessly on his knees and eyes lost into the dark. Neil couldn't tell if they were open. He doubted this would make any difference at all.

"Jean?"

For some time—quite a long time—he didn't reply at all. Neil's first guess was vague sleepiness, exhaustion even; but Jean's body was unmoving, terrifying, slumped against the wall like it was already dead.

"I need you to be mean to me."

"What?" Neil whispered back, brows twitching at the surprising sound of Jean's voice. It was low, tired—it was obvious he couldn't find enough rest to sleep.

"Don't make me repeat it," he growled in a breath. "It's already that unpleasant."

"I won't," Neil decided. He made his way through the doorframe but stopped a safe distance away; a Raven remained a Raven after all. Tonight it seemed Jean was back to his old self, which Neil had found was a defense mechanism or, perhaps, an ultimate attempt at breathing in.

"Why? You've always hated my guts. I would despise myself, too."

It wasn't as conditional as it was honest, and Neil found it pathetically sad. Jean's efforts to mask his profound self-loathing were admirable, but they were vain and he knew so. He didn't even sound like he believed any of it himself. Jean could disguise it as fear, as tiredness—but Neil was no fool. He knew enough of that heart-wrenching feeling to recognize it. A hate for yourself so deep nobody could ever rival with it.

"Come on. Be mean, say something. Anything." He stayed quiet, the words lingering on his lips like he wasn't sure he wanted Neil to hear them. "I need you to make me cry."

Neil waited, stunned by the honesty. "Why?"

Jean lifted his head, eyes meeting his without an ounce of shame. He looked like he didn't even have the strength to act prideful anymore. The mask was gone.

"Because I can't do it myself."

Truth is, Jean had taught himself not to cry long ago. It was something he'd had to do if he wanted to survive at Castle Evermore.

That much was true: Jean Moreau didn't feel anything. The haze was too thick now, the fatigue too heavy. He could dig and dig and dig but find nothing; he could pray all unexalting gods and still be denied the relief of his never-ending pain. He couldn't suffer without the blood. He couldn't mourn without the loss.

He needed the excruciating fatality of not being able to hold back. He needed to snap out of control, brutally, to destroy something just to destroy it. Hurting in silence was like dreaming—far-off, acceptable, barely real. Someone who had thrived on self-destruction for so long couldn't bear the waveless ocean his life had become. Apathy was inevitable for survival, and only now Neil could see it in his eyes.

"Make me," Jean pleaded, almost angry.

Neil didn't budge.

"I'm not a good person," Jean added. It seemed he was talking to himself, like Neil had never really been there.

"You're not," he agreed. Jean's eyes met his and he searched for truth or lies; but Neil was practicing the brunt of honesty with admirable care. Jean nodded, slowly, strangely thankful for the given truth. But when he looked away, Neil felt the need to add: "But neither am I."

Jean looked up again, disbelief in his stern eyes. Neil didn't bother trying to prove his point. Instead, he stood before him and shrugged.

"You're selfish. You're arrogant, and so much of a perfectionist you can't handle reality. You hold grudges. You grit your teeth everytime someone opens their mouth. You think you're better than everyone—smarter, faster, stronger. You think you've been abandoned by the universe so you find comfort in hating every single one of us you come across. That's the only thing you have left, your bitterness."

Silence stretched, dangerously at first. Then Jean cracked a smile, and before he could stop it from happening, the cut dug deeper into his cheeks to reveal dimples Neil had never noticed before.

"Fuck you," he whispered.

Neil stared without embarrassment, until, he found out, Jean's eyes had gone teary. He stood there, not knowing whether to apologize or leave, but Jean only let his head rest against the wall in a relieved sigh, eyes closed as his tears slowly strolled their way down his neck.

"Thank you," he said.

Neil sat down with him and waited until he couldn't hear anything to peep at Jean's figure, almost hidden by the darkness; no tear left, no sharp breath at the edge of his lips. Jean had fallen asleep.

"You're welcome," Neil said to himself.


End file.
